11 Plus Exams Forum

Good luck to all who are taking the test today.

Will let you know regarding test once I get some feedback from my daughter, fingeers crossed.

Zahir

Daughter found NVR and Maths easier than VR.

Zahir

My daughter claimed the exam was "easy" which is a bit worrying. She managed to answer all the questions with time to spare for checking. She said the questions were like NFER Nelson papers but easier.

Hi there
My daughter came out with a smile on her face, like many of the other girls, which was pleasing. She also found the NVR and the maths o.k with a few tricky questions at the end of the VR.
When my son did the test last year, all the boys came out and said it was 'easy' so I guess only time will tell. After the horrendous queue that the girls had to wait in this morning, I wish everyone the best of luck.
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All the children I tutored for this exam claimed it was easier than all the NFER practice tests. While it is good that the children feel they have acquitted themselves well, I have warned their parents that the easier the exam is, the higher score they will need to attain.
My own child claims it wasn't that easy but her idea of not easy was the fact there were two on the maths papers she couldn't do. Another child's idea of easy is there were 40 on the maths papers she could do. It depends on whether they are a glass half empty or a glass half full type person.
What I would stress to all the children is that the KE will me much harder, with the possibility that they will not finish some sections. I find you have to stress this particularly with the ones who did the Sutton exams because they tend to me more shocked by KE than the ones who didn't bother doing Sutton.

fm wrote:All the children I tutored for this exam claimed it was easier than all the NFER practice tests. While it is good that the children feel they have acquitted themselves well, I have warned their parents that the easier the exam is, the higher score they will need to attain.
My own child claims it wasn't that easy but her idea of not easy was the fact there were two on the maths papers she couldn't do. Another child's idea of easy is there were 40 on the maths papers she could do. It depends on whether they are a glass half empty or a glass half full type person.
What I would stress to all the children is that the KE will me much harder, with the possibility that they will not finish some sections. I find you have to stress this particularly with the ones who did the Sutton exams because they tend to me more shocked by KE than the ones who didn't bother doing Sutton.

What happens if Sutton have made it so easy that far more children get full marks than they have places for, or doesn't that ever happen? I would have thought it would be better to make it a bit harder so that there is more differentiation at the top end.

Hi Guest

I don't think it will so easy that a large number of children get close to full marks, but if it was the case then there is published research that it can invalidate the Age Standardisation process and in particular disadvantage older candidates.

To quote from I P Schagen (the author of the Age Standardisation methodology used):-

The fundamental assumption of the basic standardization model is that the percentile values may be fitted by a set of parallel straight lines as a function of age. There may be circumstances, however, in which this assumption is not valid. For example, if there is a "ceiling effect" then the test is too easy for the age range and the top percentiles are unable to increase with age at the same rate as the lower percentiles.

There are "mathematical" ways around this to compensate however this is not really satisfactory and tests should be designed such that the average raw score is not close to the maximum score.

For info there was such an issue with the Warwickshire 11+ plus test last year and the previous few years) which resulted in much debate about cheating

Hope this helps

I quite agree. It should be harder so you can differentiate. This is possibly why KE threw out NFER tests some years ago. They are just too easy to tutor towards--with the real life tests easier than their own practice tests.

I suspect all my students will get around 36/40 on non-verbal (allowing for carelessness)and 40/45 in VR, with only the maths distinguishing them--and therefore becoming the deciding factor. This is a pity for the children whose talents lie in English rather than maths. If the vocabulary-based VR questions were more stretching, this would allow them to shine.

All the same I doubt you would get 100+ students getting full marks. In fact, I know from a past year that the last student admitted scored 104 marks out of 135 before standardisation. This is lower than you would expect because there are probably 200 girls who opted for a KE before Sutton who dropped out of the equation. All of my students have bought KE first and the majority will probably get it.

I also agree that the test should be more difficult in order to differentiate. As Ken R has said there are problems with the age standardisation if many children score nearly full marks. I also think that it means silly mistakes play a greater part as to whether children will be offered a place or not. I also think it may raise hopes of a lot of children who think they have done really well, when they may not have done quite so well comparitively. March seems a long way away...

Yes, I have heard that once children have been tutored in the different types of questions NFER use then they can quickly identify them in the test and get the answers right. Untutored children would therefore be disadvantaged, and that is why there is such a huge tutoring industry going on in Birmingham. Even so, I would expect NFER to make the real tests more difficult than the practice ones rather than easier, otherwise there will inevitably be problems with average tutored children getting through and bright untutored ones not passing. I can't see how such a system is in the interest of the school. I don't have any axe to grind here as only one of my children has ever sat the Sutton/Vesey exam, and that was a few years ago when they would tell you if the child had passed but he would not be offered a place unless you lived within a certain distance of the school. He did and he wasn't!